Researchers from the Great Lakes Institute for Environmental Research (GLIER) will give an update on results from last summer’s citizen scientist beach water sample collection initiative during a public meeting on Wednesday at GLIER, 2990 Riverside Dr. W.

The Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) Beach Project asked hundreds of people to fan out across Essex County in August 2017 to collect water samples for use in measuring harmful E.coli bacteria and the study of specific pathogen genes in real-time.

Subba Rao Chaganti, an adjunct professor in GLIER and one of the project’s coordinators, said the initiative was the first of its kind in the world and was intended to give researchers data that would provide a complete spatial map.

Citizen scientists and representatives from Parks Canada, the Windsor-Essex County Health Unit; ERCA; Environment Climate Change Canada; MOECC, and other partners will be on hand to review study results.